Faux Needle Turned Applique

A few weekends ago, I had the opportunity to take a class with Ginny Robinson and made a one block version of her Fauchet quilt.

Ginny's quilt Fauchet won a ribbon in Quiltcon 2018.  The block design and the colors she chose were inspired by an aunt's crochet afghan.

Photo sourced from Modern Quilt Guild, quilt credit Ginny Robinson

The process itself was interesting.  We glued our fabric to the shape cut from a specific interfacing product.  

Then we cut the fabric around the glued shape with about 1/8 - 1/4 '' seam allowance and then wrapped and glued the edges down.  Then more glue to put your shape in the right spot.  The glue really held the shapes where you wanted them and was ideal if the project needed to be put away for awhile - you can do so confident everything will stay in place.

The final step involved zig-zag-ing the shapes using invisible thread on the top and a thread that matched your background fabric in the bobbin.  Ginny advised a zero tension setting and the smallest size stitch you could deal with.  I managed a 1.5 length and width.

The invisible thread worked great.  Although I had two spools in my stash, I don't recall every using it before.  It worked fine in my machine - the only hitch I had the thread got stuck on the spool itself a few times.  After some trail and error, I found that it worked fine if there was some slack between the spool and the first 'thing' it threads through on the machine. 

Once everything is secured with thread, you need to give your block a bath in cold water to dissolve away all that glue and soften up the interfacing.  I made sample shape block and left it overnight to test it out the soaking in water process - it came out great!

Next step is to soak my block and then quilt.  I am going to make a pillow.

I am generally not a fan of other applique techniques I've tried but Ginny's process of faux needle turned applique is definitely one I would do again.

Have a wonderful day! Patty